A workbook used by students at Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters has no political agenda and won't be removed from the classroom, Springfield interim Superintendent Bob Hill said Monday.

Since the controversy surfaced online last week, Hill said, he's received a handful of calls and more than a dozen emails.

Gun-rights supporters claim students at Grant Middle School, 1800 W. Monroe St., are being taught that the Second Amendment permits only strictly regulated, registered gun ownership.

The concerns are based on a picture posted by a Grant parent on the “Illinois Gun Owners Rights” Facebook page about a workbook his child brought home. The posting was picked up by a number of websites and shared thousands of times online.

The workbook, according to the picture posted, provides the following description of the Second Amendment:

“This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and have not been in prison. The founding fathers included the amendment to prevent the United States from acting like the British who had tried to take weapons away from the colonists.”

In reality, the Second Amendment states:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Hill said he looked into the issue and found there was no “political agenda” behind what was written in the workbook. He explained that one teacher at Grant used it this year as an instructional tool for a lesson on the Constitution.

Another teacher, who has since retired, created the workbook. It's not used at any other buildings in the district, Hill added.

Hill said the material was designed to cast the Second Amendment with a modern perspective.

“We have board policy about how teachers present lessons to students, and it says teachers are asked to leave political persuasion out of equation of presenting information,” Hill said. “I think the people upset about that believe that's what happened.

“My investigation points me somewhere else. It's just not a political statement. It's an attempt to give a gross generalization.”

Hill further explained that the unit in that class on the Constitution has wrapped up, and he would not ask the teacher to exclude it from future presentations.

“What I'm doing here is maintaining the academic freedom of the teacher,” Hill said. “For me, it's an issue bigger than this one issue. It's about the fact that teachers in the district went to college, got a degree and a license to teach.

Page 2 of 2 - “We don't micro-manage them and tell them there is only one way or the other to teach.”